Silver Linings by Millie Gray

"Silver Linings" is author Millie Gray's seventh novel. Since first putting pen to paper
in 2008 she has seen her work make the bestseller list. She places her characters around the port
of Leith during the years of the Second World War and its aftermath and writes with a familiarity
about their homes, the streets round about them and of their working lives.

The Anderson family are a close-knit group - parents Johnny and Sandra, their three sons
Bobby, Jack and Davy and daughter Kitty - and see themselves as 'complete'; until Sandra, at age
38, suddenly finds herself pregnant again. Daughter Kitty takes the news of a new addition to the
family badly and this causes a rift between her and her mother. The day of the baby's birth changes
all their lives forever. A complicated birth sees baby Rosebud and her siblings left without a
mother and father Johnny without his beloved wife. All struggle to cope, particularly Kitty whose
death-bed promise to her mother leaves her as carer for her baby sister, leaving her hopes of
improvement and for a different life in tatters.

Also part of the Anderson clan are Johnny's domineering mother Jenny, who lives close
by, and his spinster sister Kate who stays with her. At 41, Kate has lived through the loss of her
intended, Hugh, and is bereft of love with only memories to sustain her. Both she and her mother
look to step in to care for baby Rosebud, but Johnny moves his family from their Ferrier Street
home to a new place in Restalrig, hoping that a new start will help them all. And whilst Johnny
throws himself into his role as shop steward at the shipyard and the boys move on one by one, Kitty
simmers with resentment for the sister who took her childhood away and killed her hopes and
dreams.

Kitty befriends new neighbour Connie, who also takes a shine to Johnny and he to her.
The problem for them both is that Connie is still a married women. Whilst she is long separated
from her husband, Johnny sees no future in a relationship with her unless they can be man and wife.
He is also tied by his death-bed promise to Sandra, that he will never let another woman take her
place. Tensions run high in the family and as each member tries to make their way in uncertain
times, with the very fabric of their lives falling around them, events intervene to both push them
apart and then draw them back together again. "Silver Linings" is a compelling read and a very
satisfying one, leaving the reader with a sense of hope for the future for this, in many ways
ordinary, but in other ways extraordinary, family.